Environmentalism: A Challenge to Modernity

This chapter discusses the environmental movement vis-à-vis modernity in the last century. Starting in the early 70s, the contemporary environmental movement consists of articulated collective action opposing polluting agents in different areas of the world, and pursuing a new planetary natural equilibrium. This movement aims to construct a new more balanced model for natural development by scientific and technical means. This movement doesn’t pursue a romantic project to protect nature against modernity and modernization, nor a denial of modernity, nor modernity as a crisis, but a new way to understand and change the world. The environmental movement produces a critical consciousness of both itself and modernity.

Simulating Urban Expansion Based on Ecological Security Pattern—A Case Study of Hangzhou, China

Disordered urban expansion has encroached on a large amount of ecological land, resulting in the steady degradation of urban ecology, which has an adverse effect on the sustainable development of the region. An ecological security pattern can effectively control urban expansion, and it is of great significance to balance urban development and ecological protection. In order to analyze the impact of ecological security patterns on urban expansion, Hangzhou was taken as an example, the CA-Markov model and FLUS model were used to simulate the urban expansion pattern in 2030 under the natural development scenario and the ecological security scenario. The results showed that (1) the ecological source area in the study area is 630.90 km2 and was mainly distributed in the western mountainous area. There are 14 ecological corridors, primarily composed of valleys and rivers. Ecological nodes are mainly distributed on the north and south sides of the main urban area. (2) From 2000 to 2018, the annual increase index (AI) of construction land decreased in the northeast and southeast directions but increased in the northwest and southwest directions, and in the northeast direction the value was always the highest. Except for the southwest direction, the average annual growth rate (AGR) of construction land in the other directions decreased. At a distance from the city center of 30 km, AI was relatively higher and was increasing, while AGR was declining. At a distance of 30–45 km, both AI and AGR were increasing, indicating that the focus of construction land was moving outwards. (3) From 2018 to 2030, under both natural development scenario and ecological security scenario, construction land would keep expanding, but the construction land area, proportion, AI, and AGR of the latter would both be smaller than the former, indicating that the ecological security pattern can effectively curb urban expansion. Because of a large amount area of ecological sources, the expansion of construction land in the southwest direction would be constrained, especially under the ecological security scenario. The methods and results of this study can provide theoretical and application references for urban planning and green development in metropolises.

Acquiring Consonant Phonemes by Kurdish Children

Natural phonology and the theory of Roman Jacobson are crucial in acquiring language phonemes. In this paper which is entitled "acquiring consonant phonemes by Kurds children", we will endeavor based on the above theories, to focus on acquiring consonant phonemes in Kurdish language from age two years and a month to the age of six years and 5 months. We will also review the studies and methods that deal with acquiring language phonemes. The importance of this study is to find out at what age do the Kurds children obtains all consonant phonemes, or what are the difficult phonemes for Kurds children which acquire them at a later time. Is there a gender difference in acquiring phonemes among children? The present paper beside these objectives also aims at catching the interests of those who investigate Kurdish language, in order to conduct more research’s on this matter especially children phonology to determine the natural development of children language.

Valences of Financial Reporting According to IFRS. Up-to-Date Challenges for Financial Auditors

Through this paper, the authors want to mark the centenary of the accounting profession in our country (1921-2021). They aim to analyze the evolution of financial reporting, at the national level, in the last three decades, parallel to the natural development of the accounting profession and to bring into the spotlights: – how developments at the national level have kept pace with the ever-changing European and international financial reporting requirements; – the current challenges for the accounting profession in general and financial auditors, in particular, generated by the frequent and particularly complex changes of international standards in the field, changes generated precisely by the need to strengthen the quality of the information provided by financial reporting; – the natural steps to be taken to strengthen professional cooperation and collaboration within and in the interest of the accounting profession, to respond effectively to the expectations of all stakeholders in the development of financial reporting.

The evolution of the undulating wall

Expressive buildings based on curvilinear geometry became one of many characteristic elements of contemporary architecture. A fascination with irregular, undulating forms has already been visible in the 20th century. However, the sources of the undulating motifs go back to the Baroque period, when buildings with curved façades were one of the best examples of the natural development of architectural thought. The evolution of this idea took place at the beginning of the 20th century. In the following years, the motif of the undulating lines was used by many architects who draw upon its regular or free character. The Authors using the analytical and interpretative method show the evolution of the undulating wall. The Authors use the terms of curved lines defined by Kandinsky. The analysis of selected examples shows the ideological, material, and constructional evolution of the undulating wall, as well as the way of transforming the idea of the undulating line, which returns to its baroque roots, but in a more modern version.

Formal Philosophy of Science: Statement and Set-theoretic Approaches

The so-called received view of scientific theory, initially proposed by logical positivists, represented scientific theory as a set of statements of some formal language, ordered by syntactic relation of deductive derivability. By late 1960s this strategy had met with severe criticism which called into question the effectiveness of formal methods in philosophy of science. The set-theoretic (semantic) approach in formal philosophy of science, which can be treated as natural development of received view, is based on the concept of model in Tarski’s sense and is capable of neutralizing the most part of these objections.

The Issue of Morals in the Setting of Globalization in the Modern World

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of unification of morality in the context of globalization in the modern world. With all the differences in morality in different countries of the world, the unification of morality in human society took place constantly in the process of its natural development, accompanied by globalization processes. However, recent decades have been characterized by the intensification of globalization processes and the forcible introduction of new civilizational values into human society.

Land Use-Driven Changes in Ecosystem Service Values and Simulation of Future Scenarios: A Case Study of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

Global climate change and land use change arising from human activities affect the ecosystem service values (ESVs). Such impacts have increasingly become significant, especially in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP). Major factors impeding the construction of China’s “ecological security barrier” are shifts in land-use patterns under rapid urbanization, irrational crop and animal husbandry activities, and tourism. In the present study, land use changes in the QTP in recent years were analyzed to determine their impacts on ESVs, followed by simulations of the interactive and evolutionary relationships between land use and ESVs under two scenarios: natural development scenarios and ecological protection scenarios. According to the results, the QTP land-use structure has a small change, and the main land use type is alpine grassland, followed by bare land and woodland. The stability of the major land use types is the key factor responsible for the overall increasing ESV trend. Different regions on the QTP had substantially varied ESVs. The northwest and southeast regions are mostly bare land, which is a concentrated area of low value of ecosystem services. A variety of land use types including grassland and woodland have been found in the humid and semi-humid areas of the central region, so the high value of ecosystem services is concentrated in this area to form a hot spot, with a Z value of 0.63–2.84. Simulations under the natural development and ecological protection scenarios revealed that land use changes guided by ecological policies were more balanced and the associated ESVs were relatively higher than those under the natural development scenario. Under a global climate change context, human activities on the QTP should be better managed. Sustainable development in the region could be facilitated by ensuring synchronization between resource availability and adopted socioeconomic activities.